These days Young Ruby often sits atop the Rose 01 dune, aka the Blue Rose Dune, and meditates on her surroundings:

Eraserhead Man’s cottage to the south and its Rabbit Hole portal, now fronted by a small grove of palms…

… Axis’ supposed castle to the west…

… but then an even higher castle across Route 9 that Ruby speculates may his actual home in a bluff, this Man in the High Castle, after all. But maybe both castles are bluffs…

… since we also have the moving castle, the island’s Monster as some call it, including her Aunt Annie. It almost invariably appears to abductees/visitors in or around the Wastelands. More on that soon.

Poor Annie, Ruby thinks. Lost in a quagmire of undifferentiated pills, dance, and sex now. Like being covered in bees with no whirlwind plan for escape.

She should go visit Karl over in the Gloomy Gus after this; get a measure of how he’s holding up. That way she can also stop by the duplicate Scarlet Creative Sylvia House and see if Mabel is, by chance, home. She’d like to catch up with what’s happening over in Heterocera these days. And her doppleganger.